What a find: The Empire
What a find: The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated, an online exhibit at the U.S. Library of Congress.
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii was a photographer for Nicholas II in the early twentieth century. He developed a unique method of capturing colour images using three glass plates and red, green and blue filters. The plates would then be projected over top of each other to re-produce the original colour.
The Library of Congress has digitally re-created the images, touching them up here and there and re-tuning the brightness and contrast. And the results are nothing less than stunning. It’s like staring at film production stills from a well-researched historical drama. Only these are real people wearing actual clothes standing in front of some of the finest architecture and landscapes the world has offered. In particular though, Prokudin-Gorskii’s images capture an incredible diversity of people across Nicholas’ collossal empire.
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